Here is an an early look at Bob Wilson's column coming Sunday in The Durham News. Tell us what you think below (with your name) or in a letter to the editor at editor@newsobserver.com

BY BOB WILSON

I hope you didn’t reflexively toss the mini-billboard that came in the mail a few days ago. You know, the one with the beaming faces of County Commissioners Chairman Michael Page, fellow incumbents Joe Bowser and Brenda Howerton, and incumbent wannabe Rickey Padgett.

The billboard – er, campaign post card – appeared to be from the candidates themselves, all fervent supporters of 751 South, the proposed 167-acre, mixed-use project hard by the Chatham County line.

And hard by the eutrophic upper reaches of Jordan Lake, which needs another patch of urban sprawl about as much as James Harden needs another elbow punch from the Lakers’ Metta World Peace.

The post card actually came from the Durham Partnership for Progress, a political action committee formed by Southern Durham Development Inc., the local outfit behind 751 South. The PAC exists for one purpose: Elect its four anointed candidates to ensure that 751 South has a future.

Don’t be dazzled by Southern Durham President Alex Mitchell’s declaration that the PAC has high-minded ambitions to “foster a political environment … that encourages equal opportunity, job creation, smart growth.”

Smart growth?

What’s so smart about planting 1,300 homes and townhouses and 600,000 square feet of office-retail on 167 acres of environmentally sensitive land whose runoff by Southern Durham’s own assessment will put 600 pounds of nitrogen a year into Jordan Lake?

By Tammy Grubb

The Board of Aldermen will meet at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the OWASA Community Room, 400 Jones Ferry Road. (The meeting will be held at OWASA until after the May 8 election, since Town Hall is being used as an early voting site.)

The board will hold public hearings on several items, including a proposed application seeking state Community Development Block Grant funding for a public sewer on Roberson Street. The aldermen have approved building the sewer line in response to last year’s failure of the private sewer line serving multiple businesses in the 100 block of East Main Street. The $238,600 project will extend an existing OWASA sewer main from Maple Street to Roberson Street. The town is requesting 70 percent of the funding from the state program and has asked the county to help provide local funding for the project through the quarter-cent sales tax for economic development.

Other public hearings scheduled for Tuesday will deal with changes to the town’s land-use ordinance regarding compact car and bicycle parking requirements.

The board also is scheduled to talk about OWASA’s draft protocol for when the utility can tap its local allowance from Jordan Lake in times of severe drought and discuss the possibility of additional regulations on predatory towing from privately-owned parking lots.

Staff photographer John Rottet tipped us off to this live Ustream feed (also, below) which is monitoring an eagle's nest at Jordan Lake that has two eggs about to hatch. The state park at Jordan Lake has the largest concentration of bald eagles in the eastern United States, according to the park's website.

Update 2 (3 p.m. Wednesday): One of the babies has hatched. Ustream user Mochamama22 posted this YouTube video of the hatching, recorded from the Ustream feed (it's the second video below). Warning: Some viewers might be disturbed by seeing the remains of a third bird in the nest - a celebratory dinner for the parents, perhaps.

The live camera was set up last year as a joint project between NC State, the US Army Corps of Engineers, Maxim Intergrated Products and Lineberger Tree Service, according to information posted on the Ustream feed. The organizers have not named the eagles, nor are they disclosing the precise location of the nest.

Update 1: The nest does not appear to be artificially lit at night. Check back during daytime hours.

If you saw staff photographer Harry Lynch's pictures of the GSK Jordan Lake cleanup in today's N&O and want to help clean the lake this weeknd, read on:

Clean Jordan Lake will host a general public trash clean-up day on Saturday, Oct. 1, beginning at 8:30 am.  Volunteers should meet at Poes Ridge Boat Ramp off Jordan Dam Road. 

Last year, approximately 200 volunteers removed 600 tires and 700 bags of trash from a one-mile length of the Wilderness Island shoreline that forms one side of the Haw River Arm and also traps stormwater-driven trash.  This year’s volunteers will work their way farther south along this section. The 2011 public event is partly funded by a grant from the Boat U.S. Foundation to attract more boaters to CJL clean-up events.

This year’s cleanup will require a flotilla of boats to ferry volunteers because the trashed shoreline is now too far from the access road to make walking practical. The Piedmont section of the N.C. Coast Guard Auxiliary, the N.C. Sea Cadets, and various fishing clubs are also bringing boats to help with ferrying during the public clean-up event.

The Chatham County Solid Waste and Recycling Division will provide trash disposal. N.C. Big Sweep and the N.C. Department of Transportation will provide bags and gloves. 

Get details here.

And high school students can now earn community service hours in this weekend's N.C. Big Sweep. Jordan Lake Environmental Education is hosting an effort to clean the northern end of the lake. To participate, go here. 

Carrboro Alderman Dan Coleman wants to make sure there is an adequate local water supply for growth until OWASA's Quarry Reservoir comes online in 2035. 

The Board of Aldermen and Chapel Hill Town Council want Jordan Lake used for future emergencies only. OWASA, which wants its Jordan Lake allocation available for future droughts that may not rise to the level of an emergency, wants to amend a local agreement to allow easier water transfers.

In an e-mail to his fellow board members, Coleman says:
 

1) I believe that we should engage with OWASA and Chapel Hill to look at growth between now and the availability of the quarry 20 years hence. I suggest that we ask planning staff to meet with CH planning and OWASA planning to look at the OWASA water supply projection so as to comment on whether any particular planning for growth in the interim might be warranted to ensure that adequate water supplies continue to be available.
 
2) given that we have asserted that we support access to J Lake only as an emergency measure and given that OWASA is concerned that we might lose the allocation on that basis, I suggest we engage actively in support of that point. What I have in mind is that we and CH each designate a point person on this issue. Those people would become fully informed on the allocation process and stay in touch with OWASA as matters progress. It may be that, at some point, it would be helpful to have contact from elected leaders to the members of the Environmental Management Commission (decision-makers on the allocation) and I would like us to be prepared for that eventuality. Clearly, it would be more effective for the mayors to play any lobbying role but they do not necessarily need to be the point people prior to that time.
 

I had some questions after last night's Town Council meeting so I called OWASA today and asked planning director Ed Holland what's up with Jordan Lake. Here's what I learned:

What kind of allocation from Jordan Lake does OWASA have now? OWASA has a level 2 allocation to draw up to 5MGD (million gallons/day). Level 2 means for an unspecified future use, and the utility spends about $12,000 a year to hang on to it, more than $200,000 since 1988.

What kind of allocation does OWASA want in the future? OWASA plans to ask the state to convert its allocation to level 1, which anticipates needing the water within the next five years. The state is reviewing allocations across the Jordan Lake regional partnership, a process that could take a year or more.

How would OWASA get the water from Jordan Lake? The state no longer allows single entities to build their own intake or treatment plant on the lake. Plus OWASA could not afford that anyway. Instead the utility would pay Cary to withdraw, treat and send the water to Durham and pay Durham to send it to OWASA. 

So what's the problem? Plenty. OWASA wants to use Jordan Lake during future droughts. But 2001's Water and Sewer Management Agreement (they call it WASAMBA) restricts such transfers to emergencies (or non-emergencies if local governments that control OWASA give prior consent). Buying Jordan Lake water to prevent conservation measures and a big rate surcharge would not be considered an emergency, says Holland. (And after last night, it's doubtful that either Chapel Hill or Carrboro, which had already rejected any changes, would give their consent.)

What happened last night? The Town Council, which had previously approved the changes, reversed itself. Instead of a 7-2 vote giving OWASA the go-ahead, it voted 7-2 to take it back. (What happened? Well, council members gave their initial approval after 11 p.m.  on Feb. 28. They probably wanted to go home.)  Did the reversal surprise OWASA? "At this point nothing surprises me," Holland says.

What happens next? OWASA will regroup, try to seek a compromise. It could also withdraw from WASAMBA and pursue its long term water strategy unencumbered. But Chapel Hill and Carrboro appoint 7 of the OWASA board's 9 members, so you do the math. 

Bottom line: OWASA is probably not going to run out of water. But there's not as much wiggle room, the agency says. Drought has taught customers how to get by with less, and with growth there is less to go around. Having Jordan Lake as a backup would let the utility drain its own, cleaner lakes longer before having to take water from polluted Jordan. "We want Jordan Lake as an insurance policy," Holland says. "Our risk will increase as demand gradually grows."    

The Walmart Bass Fishing League is headed to Jordan Lake on Saturday morning for the second of five stops in the Piedmont Division. As many as 400 boaters and co-anglers will be competing for top awards of up to $8,000 and $3,000, respectively.
          “Jordan is a good lake with lots of fish,” said Chevy pro Bryan Thrift. “There is a little bit of color in the lake and I don’t think the spawn should impact the fishing. I would stay shallow and throw a jig with a spinnerbait.”
          Takeoff and weigh-in will be at New Hope Overlook on W.H. Jones Road in Fuquay Varina. Takeoff is scheduled for 7 a.m. while weigh-in will begin at 3 p.m. Takeoffs and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
         Bass Fishing League competition is a 24-division circuit devoted to weekend anglers offering bigger prizes to those who qualify for the regional championships and those who make it to one of the longest-running championships in all of competitive bass fishing – the BFL All-American presented by Chevy. Top winners in the BFL can move up to the EverStart Series or even the Walmart FLW Tour.
         For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow FLW Outdoors on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishingand on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWOutdoors.

The Clean Jordan Lake organization is seeking volunteers for its team as part of the 21st Annual Haw River Cleanup on Saturday, March 12.

Cleanups are bountiful this fall. This Saturday, Sept. 25, is National Public Lands Day as well as International Coastal Cleanup Day & Urban Waters Cleanup.

A local nonprofit, Clean Jordan Lake, is recruiting volunteers to pick up trash at Jordan Lake from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 8.

Volunteers will meet at the Jordan Dam Visitor Assistance Center (also known as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters) at 2080 Jordan Dam Road in Moncure. To sign up, visit www.meetup.com/HelpCleanJordanLake.

Efforts will be focused near the B. Everett Jordan Dam, where large amounts of trash tend to accumulate after storms. If possible, bring boats and kayaks (pfd required) to help reach the parts of the shoreline not accessible by foot.  Pants, long-sleeve shirts, hats and bug repellent are highly recommended.  Bottled water, lunch, gloves and trash bags will be provided.

The cleanup is in cooperation with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the NC Department of Transportation, North Carolina Big Sweep and the Haw River Assembly.